STARS: a socio-technical framework for integrating design knowledge over the Internet

Traditional design tools usually model collaborative work as a process of data access and sharing. In globally distributed environments, however, it becomes important to model the interdisciplinary perspectives that individual contributors bring to the data. We refer to the individuals involved in the design process as stakeholders. Each stakeholder comes to the project with a different perspective: that is, different preferences, environments, and knowledge. An information system that accounts for these social and technical factors would not only manipulate design data, but also facilitate the reconciliation of these design perspectives over the Internet. This article presents a conceptual framework for supporting knowledge integration by modeling stakeholders´ design perspectives. We describe the Social-Technical Analysis Research System (STARS), a prototype implementation system that uses advanced networking techniques to support stakeholders´ interaction in collaborative design